


The Ghosts of Everyone That Tried to Fly

by Stray_Ashes



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Flying, Freedom, Ghosts, It may look like suicide but it's not, M/M, Mess, Philosophy, Translation, electric century - Freeform, philosophical thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 13:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10945566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stray_Ashes/pseuds/Stray_Ashes
Summary: Just... wait here, I was told, with the ghosts of everyone that tried to fly.And I, flying, stayed with them. I waited, with them. I stayed and waited, with Him.What was I waiting for?Nothing. I was waiting for the wait to never end.And it was okay, it was fine that way.___________________________________________A mess of thoughts and metaphorical fantasies inspired by Electric Century's song "I Lied" and translated for me by @poisonmilkshake





	The Ghosts of Everyone That Tried to Fly

**Author's Note:**

> -Translated from Italian by poisonmilkshake

 

 

What's left of us when we die?  
What's left of us, while we live?  
What are they made of, the ghosts...? Of the same substance of the soul...? Perhaps, of the same substance of the air? Are they perhaps damp and heavy, like the fog, that fills the sky and my lungs? Are they like thoughts, that fill the mind and color themselves with oblivion?  
Or are they, perhaps, made of flesh, bones, blood, cartilage and fluids?  
Because we, perhaps, are born from fog like the ghosts, and like ghosts we go back to the fog, dying.  
Because, while you think, you're already dead and already lived. The present is an illusion.  
And I'm a ghost, and the mirror doesn't reflect my thoughts.  
Can ghosts fly...? I'd like to try.  
Take my hand, even if you won't feel it to the touch, even if I'm fog that melts and thins out between your fingers.  
Take my hand, or take me by the throat, 'cause after all I've given all my breaths to the air already, and to the earth I've given all my tears.  
I will give you words.  
And that's how one is born: dying. And that's how one dies: being born.  
And take my hand, and take my memories, and the light from my eyes, so that's how I will exist forever.

 

Or not. Or maybe, _no_.  
 _No._  
 _No._  
 _Maybe._  
 _Who knows._  
 _Confusion._  
 _Hypothesis._  
 _No._  
 _Or yes?_  
 _Does it matter?_  
 _No._  
 _Yes._  
 _I don't want to know._  
 _I want to die._  
And what if dying meant _wanting to live_ to understand why, we want to die instead of living?  
And what if wanting to live meant _wanting to understand_ why to live instead of dying? How can we know what is worse, or what is better? And what if death is before birth, and what comes after is something else? If after life there was... another kind of existence? Either more relative, or more concrete: more relative than the impalpable-ness of air and more concrete than the stones that at the bottom of the river will know how to kill me.  
After all, they say that death is not to exist anymore. But the real not to exist, is to never have lived.  
What right did men take to call the end of life, ' _death'_? But, heavens, it's just a word. I'm the one who gives it meaning. I could call _death_ the bottle that's been abandoned not far from me. And it would be the same. It would still be a bottle.  
And if I'm crazy?  
Does it matter?  
 _No._  
 _Yes._  
 _Maybe._  
 _No. I was just desperate_.  
What is desperation?

Maybe I'm not a ghost. Maybe I'm not anything. I'm not fog, and I'm not thoughts. I'm just flesh and blood or perhaps I'm not even that.  
Maybe death doesn't exist. And if life didn't exist? I could have made it up. I could have made up everything, everyone, I could have made up yesterday. I could have started existing from now, with a brain full of memories that never happened, that I just made up. Yet, my existence could have started right now, but I just don't know, because yesterday seems real. It seemed real.  
And maybe it isn't.  
Maybe life is not real. Maybe if I die nothing happens; surely; the Universe won't notice.  
Universe...  
 _Universe..._  
Does that exist? But if neither death nor life exist, why should it exist?  
Do my thoughts exist? Perhaps they don't, and that would be nice... yet I'm thinking them.  
I'd like to stop. They say that death is what could help me with that... the ironic thing, is that the living are the ones who say it. And what do they know? It should be asked to the dead, but that's not feasible, at least I think so.  
Maybe nothing can help me.  
Maybe maybe maybe maybe _maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe...._  
Whisper me the maybe number ten... whisper me the maybe number twenty-five... you whisper it, as if it were a countdown; yes, you, you who should have taken my hand, when I asked you before in the middle of the flow of my thoughts, in the middle of my hope to be fog and to be a ghost, that's still always better than being nothing and not being able to flee from myself.  
I asked it to you, I asked you to take the memories and the light from my eyes, to make me exist forever. Because to exist, oh, it's not to live and it's not to die. What is it, then? Don't read these words as if I could give you an answer, because I'm the desperate one, here.  
But I'm a fool... you're so far away from me, I don't even know who you are, you're only reading words that I don't even think I've ever written, only thought, and maybe you're feeling pity, and I'd hate you, for that.  
After all, I'm already dead and I'm already lived. After all, you're already dead and you're already lived. We're ghosts, remember?  
Or maybe we aren't.  
Maybe the present exists and it sucks.  
I'm sure that illusions exist anyway, instead.  
And since the present could exist, that implies that I could even die now. If death really exists, that is.  
Can I?  
 _No._  
 _Yes._  
 _Maybe._  
Have you been keeping count, of the maybes?

You can't take my hand, I'm alone.  
And either you're incredibly cold, or there's no one out here.

I can only feel the wind, whistling in my ears and moving locks of dark hair before my eyes.  
I can only feel the granite, under my naked feet, because in the night I ran away and I see the sunrise now, somewhere towards the horizon.  
How long have I been thinking? I guess it's funny that I wanted to stop...  
I can only hear far away noises, muffled, I hear the roar of the cars and the howl of the dogs, I hear a baby crying, or maybe that's just the child in my heart, the last cry of the past Me that would've never wanted to die.  
I only hear the cursed music of the water.  
I hear the desperate roar of the river.  
I hear the rhythm that corrodes the stones.  
I can't even hear my heartbeat anymore.  
I only hear my thoughts, echoing in the cold and black and empty rooms littered randomly around my brain.  
I can't feel my fingers anymore, clasped around the frozen metal, that also presses against my back. I can't feel them and nothing even hurts anymore. So, I let it go. Now only a jump is needed.  
Because I want to fly. And I want to know if death exists.  
I want to know if freedom, exists. It would be nice.  
Am I doing wrong? Is freedom in death, or is it in life?  
Maybe, freedom is in deciding freely in which, of the two.  
In death?  
In life?  
Does it matter?  
 _No._  
 _Yes._  
 _Maybe._  
 _I choose, because I am free._  
Freedom is to be free. Freedom is deciding what freedom is.  
I want to find it by learning to fly.  
"I want to fly", I say. My voice is low, it's hard to get it out, I think it might be because my throat is burning; and anyway, the noise of the water covers it. But I told it to the air, and I know it heard me.  
Have you heard me?  
Here, I don't want to die neither do I want to live. I wanna try to be free. It's not an important difference to me.  
"«I want to try to fly..." I say, I repeat.  
"I'm a ghost, and I wanna learn to fly".

"I tried too, a long time ago" someone said, and it was a voice so sweet, so warm, that I felt more wrong than before. Was it you? Or was I making that voice up? Was I deluding myself? But it was so beautiful... it didn't taste like salvation, it didn't taste like hope, it didn't taste like life and nor like death, it didn't taste like freedom. In that moment, to me, it was only beautiful. A beautiful thing can become anything you want... it can become salvation, hope, life, death, freedom... but I let the voice be only, simply, _beautiful_. I didn't need anything else.  
"I wanted to be free, I wanted to exist forever, I wanted to give the world my words, I wanted to give my art, I wanted to give the light of my eyes" continued, that someone. "I wanted to be a ghost, and like you I wanted to learn how to fly. It's not that bad, to be fog, you know? Maybe it's even better than being flesh, bone, blood, cartilage and fluids. It's better than being thoughts. It's like being wasted dreams, wasted because they became true. A dream that becomes true is a bit wasted, I'm afraid: one risks to stop running.  
One risks to never learn how to fly.  
One can be free both in life and in death. One is neither weaker nor stronger, choosing between the two. One is only _free_ " a pause, long, and I opened my eyes that I didn't remember closing: I found them in front of me. I found you in front of me. I found myself in front of me. I found Him in front of me. I found the illusion in front of me.  
Did it matter?  
 _Yes._  
 _No._  
They were the most beautiful eyes in the world. Everything was blue, between the water and the sky, but those eyes were green like a leaf, a leaf that falls from the tree or gets torn by the wind, without yellowing or without drying.  
Once, when I was a little boy, I tied a leaf to a tree with a thread: yet fall came and the wind tore it away from the branch, without a care; the leaf I'd tried to save abandoned its house and remained dead to dangle from the thread, as if it was my fault if I didn't manage to make it so it could exist forever. I couldn't tie to salvation something that would have died, yellowed and dried, I understood that day.  
In fact, I never tied myself to anything, because eventually the wind would have taken me anyway.  
But the leaf and the light behind his eyes, no. It was green, it was real. It was beautiful. Because it hadn't been tied with thread to a branch: it had just learned to fly. Without wind and without wings.  
"I wanna learn to fly. Without threads and without feathers", I whispered, staring into those eyes. His black hair moved gently, soft, but I didn't know if to move them was the wind or the slow and haphazard movement of the sea. I didn't know where I was anymore. And then I felt his slender fingers caress my cheeks, wiping the tears that I didn't know I'd cried, and caressing my hair, gently, like I could crumble under his touch and his breath, because maybe yes, I really did risk it.  
"You can already fly, my little ghost"  
"And can you fly?" I asked, and that was when I felt my lips on his, just like that, suddenly, and nothing else existed anymore. His touch was delicate, yet passionate, cold, freezing – yet hot, hell, it was insistent and incorporeal, yet it was true and I felt it, I wanted to feel it, I wanted to feel his taste, I wanted to feel his freedom, I wanted it to be mine. I wanted it to be forever. Nothing hurt anymore. Is freedom peace? Peace is reaching yourself. I'd reached freedom. I was my freedom.  
Was I wrong?  
Was I right?  
"I learned to fly? I learned with you...?", I muttered, on his lips. I felt him smile, or smirk, against my mouth.  
"Does it seem to you that you can fly?"  
"I... yes. And I'd like to be able to always do it"  
"Then wait here, with me, and with the ghosts of everyone that like you tried, to fly".

And I didn't notice that there was no noise anymore, I didn't notice that no one was crying now, I didn't notice that the granite wasn't under my feet, not anymore, that there was no wind and there were no wings.  
But I was flying.  
And I didn't notice the water, filling everything, I didn't notice that the other ghosts were crying, I only felt the fog that I was made of, that He was made of, that You were made of.  
I never knew if death existed.  
I never knew if I'd really lived.  
I never knew what others thought, when I became fog and my body disappeared.  
I never knew if someone took my memories, if someone took the light behind my eyes.  
Did it matter?  
No.  
People know that fog exists and sees it in the air, in rainy days, and they turn the headlights on to thin it out.  
People don't know that fog exists in water too, but they have no headlights for that. They don't know that it's made of ghosts, they don't know that it learned to fly.  
People don't know how beautiful freedom is.

What remains of us when we die?  
What remains of us, while we live?  
I didn't know, I never knew.  
But it was okay, it was fine that way.

Just... wait here, I was told, with the ghosts of everyone that tried to fly.  
And I, flying, stayed with them. I waited, with them. I stayed and waited, with Him.  
What was I waiting for?  
Nothing. I was waiting for the wait to never end.  
And it was okay, it was fine that way. 

**Author's Note:**

> I thought a lot about that song and its lyrics, and... I ended up writing this some time ago.... To the song in itself, but above all to that phrase. I loved her, and by accident, I came to write all this ... 2311 words almost abandoned to the case. I had not invented a plot, or nothing, it came all down as it is, without making any plans .... and yet I'm satisfied.
> 
> I hope that, at least a bit, you liked it too.
> 
> There is something that I would like to know from you: who have you imagined as a narrator, and who in your opinion is the "ghost"?
> 
> Because I chose to leave it ambiguous, and you have the freedom to choose who is who, what role Gerard has, what role does Frank have.
> 
> I myself do not know ... at first I started thinking about Gerard, but I'm always thinking of Gerard so I guess it doesn't count much, but then I introduced the other character and It's a bit like I've written about Gerard who sees Gerard, without recognizing himself.
> 
> But I repeat, you are free to decide for you, I just want to know how you interpret it.
> 
> Think, read, draw, compose, write, do what you love to do - 'cause that's how you'll learn to fly and to be free.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Stray_Ashes


End file.
